Assetizing the video game: Play-to-earn (P2E) games and blockchain rentiership

Abstract

Rentiership has recently involved the growing use of novel technological mechanisms to facilitate rent capture and extraction. This trend is reflected in a slew of "play-toearn" (P2E) video games. P2E users can earn money by playing blockchain-based video games and accumulating cryptocurrency tokens and other virtual in-game assets, which are represented as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This paper argues that P2E gaming represents a new form of techno-economic rentiership that blurs the boundaries between work and play. Using the P2E game Axie Infinity as a case study, this paper explores how economic rents are being made in a digital environment and examines the role of labor in driving rentiership dynamics. Blockchain serves as a tool for generating rents by facilitating the decentralized production of a plethora of digital assets by individual users, where property and ownership rights of these assets are algorithmically governed. P2E labor is organized under manager-scholar programs and gaming guilds that allow asset owners to receive a cut of players’ earnings in exchange for lending game assets. These labor arrangements promote community in the assetization process. Such a rentiership system is inherently unstable, relying on a highly financialized business model that needs to keep attracting financially motivated players who sustain asset values through their gameplay.